Mood:  lazy

It has certainly been a while since I've posted, but fortunately, the days of sporadic posting should be over.  At least I'm hoping my lovely PC will be working after arriving this weekend.  I'm sure it will.  Fingers crossed, at least.  Anyway, on to the recipe.  The wife says this is now her favorite food, and I have to say, I was pleased with the way the taste came out, but I'm still not completely satisied with the consistency.  They were a little come aparty for my liking, but really, taste is everything at the final accounting.  It went as follows:

6 medium to large potatoes

1/3 cup Milk 

3 tablespoons Olive Oil 

Paprika to taste

Salt to taste

Garlic Powder to taste

Black Pepper to taste 

First, the potatoes must be boiled, or baked, or microwaved.  Your choice.  Do what you have to do.  I chose to boil.  Some may choose one of the other methods I mentioned, and if you are one of those, I won't hold it against you.  Again, do what you have to do.  I boiled my potatoes over high heat for thirty minutes.  One tip on boiling, it seems to me that the potatoes  come out much better if I don't add them until after the water is good and boiling.  May just be me, but that's how it seems to me.  The downside is that I have to be extra careful when putting the potatoes into the boiling water for, what I feel, are obvious reasons and I suggest you do the same.  Don't want to burn yourself right before dinner.  After boiling, drain the potatoes in a colander, or any other safe method you may choose to use.  "Safe" being the keyword here, folks.  Next, take the potatoes and put them into a large bowl or pot, and mash them to the desired consistency.  I prefer a little bit chunky, more smashed than mashed.  Next add the 1/3 cup milk and mix into the potatoes.  I used skim but you can use whatever you wish.  Experimentation is the heart of cooking, after all.  After you have mixed in the milk, add seasoning to taste.  I used sea salt, black pepper, paprika and garlic powder.  After everything is all mixed together and tasting good, heat an appropriately sized frying pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat.  Now, the size pancake you decide to make is entirely up to you, although it seems to me that smaller, say half dollar size, pancakes may stay together better.  I made pancakes the size of hamburger patties and they broke apart a little around the edges.  This is supposed to be fun, however, so do what you want.  Pat out the pancakes from the potato mixture into the size you like, and lay them carefully in the pan.  Cook until golden brown, then flip the pancakes and do the same on the other side.  It took about five minutes per side on my stove, but your mileage may vary.  When done, remove pancakes to a plate to rest, and immediately sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.  It works best if you do this while they are still hot.  Then serve them up with your favorite foods.  I served them with a tomato based rice and vegetable dish and pan-fried chicken tenders, but they will go well with many different foods.  I'm thinking they would be great at breakfast, especially since I don't care for eggs all that much.  I think next time I might add some flour or egg to the potato mixture to see if that improves their ability to stay together, but it certainly isn't necessary as they only crumbled a little around the edges.

 captainzoli

Posted by the Captain at 1:16 PM CDT

Updated: Thursday, 17 August 2006 1:37 PM CDT

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Mood:  rushed

Quick Turkey Spaghetti

Ah, what would food be with Recipes? Why just a bunch of ingredients, laying all over the damn place, of course. So I guess it's safe to say that we can all agree the recipe is important, and I have certainly found them useful, at least as a guide line. So with this in mind, we will journey forth.

This is a recipe that was created by my lovely wife, and although simple and quick, is quite tasty, and perfect for busy people. Now, admittedly, the entire meal is not from scratch, but that is really part of the charm, and there will be a "from scratch" recipe in the near future, so don't panic. Ingredients are as follows:

package of dry pasta (I prefer whole wheat spaghetti for dietary and nutritional reasons, but to each their own)

ground turkey (again, pick the fat content that you prefer)

garlic, or garlic powder (your choice. If I have time, I prefer fresh garlic, but sometimes garlic powder has to do)

Italian seasoning of your choice (I recommend oregano or basil)

onion, or onion powder (see garlic above)

bottled spaghetti sauce (brand of your choice, but I would suggest you try some of the organic brands)

red wine (this is an optional ingredient that I rarely use, but the upside is it improves the taste of the sauce and then there is an open bottle of wine that needs to to be finished)

I bet that you can already see where this is going, but since I'm relaying the recipe, I'm going to tell you anyway. First, find a nice large skillet. The type isn't important (at least not to me), but that it is large enough to hold all the sauce ingredients is. I use a large, non-stick skillet I got from Pampered Chef. You can use whatever you have. A quick aside here: Cooking is largely a subjective activity. What that means is that I can tell you what works for me, but your mileage may vary. I may brown my ground turkey over medium heat, you may prefer high. I say, do what makes you happy. You have to eat the food, after all. Now back to our previous programming.

Place a large skillet over medium heat. Add ground turkey, or beef, or whatever ground dead animal you prefer. I'm on a diet right now, so I like turkey. When I'm not on a diet, I might prefer beef, but I suppose that's another story all together. This is one of those subjective times I was speaking about earlier. Season the meat as you see fit. Add garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, basil, whatever you like on your meat. I prefer garlic powder, black pepper, some sea salt and oregano. The wife prefers enough garlic to knock over people walking by the house. (I jest, I jest) Anyway you choose to go, it's hard to go wrong, although it might take you a couple of times preparing the meal to truly fine tune the flavors to your own tastes. Don't forget to take into account the tastes that your sauce will bring to the party later as well. After seasoning, brown your ground. Or cook the meat until it's browned, but not burnt, and then drain the excess grease from it.

If you have chose the path of real onions and garlic, then remove the now browned ground turkey from the skillet, set is aside, and add the chopped onions and garlic. Cook them until they soften slightly, then add the meat back into the skillet.

Now add the sauce of your choice to the skillet containing the browned turkey (and onions and garlic if you went that way). Now is also the time to add red wine to taste, if your tastes lean that way. You want to heat the sauce over medium heat, stirring periodically, until it just starts to bubble, then lower it to low until time to serve.

At this point, I like to make the pasta, as per the directions on the packaging. This is personal preference, but I also do it for a reason. You could, and some do, make the pasta while working on the sauce, and dinner will be ready quicker, but if you wait to make the pasta til the sauce is on low,it will have an extra ten minutes or so (depending on your individual pasta cooking times) to simmer and mingle and such, and the longer a sauce has to mingle, the better it usually is. This especially applies to leftovers the next day.

Once the pasta is ready, you are ready to eat. You can pretty much scale this meal to serve from one person to quite a few, just scale the size of the cooking ware, and the amount of the Ingredients. Spaghetti is quick, fun, flavorful, and just all around good to eat, and I always recommend it, as well as try to eat it at least once a week.

Posted by the Captain at 12:37 PM CST

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Mood:  lazy

It's time to delve into one of the most controversial food types of our time: Fast Food. Most everyone hates it, but most everyone eats it anyway. I know we do. Certainly, it is among the most secret of guilty pleasures. This being said, this spot will be used from time to time to review some of our favorite (or more specifically, my favorite) fast food places and items. Today's item is Quiznos's Cabo Chicken Sub

Now, the truth of the matter is, I don't go to Quiznos as often as I might because the wife doesn't really like their food (I still love you anyway, baby). That's life though. If we all like the same things, it would be a very dull world, especially culinarially speaking. Her recent trip to the hospital (not a good thing) resulted in my being set loose to eat what I pleased, and fate would have it, there was a Quiznos right down the street from the hospital (let's face it, they are almost as plentiful as Starbuck's). So my story begins the way most do, with an innocent trip to a sandwich shop. The sign near the ordering line spoke of the Cabo Chicken Sub, extolling it's virtues for all to see, and I was taken in. A scant five minutes later, I, with newly acquired Cabo Chicken Sub (on wheat, of course), Black Pepper & Lime potato chips, and a Dr. Pepper, was at a table, ready to dig in, and that's exactly what I did.

Overall, everything on the sub is good. It comes with the following: Deli style thin sliced chicken, bacon, cheddar, guacamole, tomatoes, red onion, a greens mix, and a mild chipotle . While all the are tasty, it's the guacamole and the chipotle that really make the sandwich. The guacamole most of all, really. This is only a problem if you don't like guacamole (like the wife). Their are only two downsides to the sub: If you don't like guacamole, you are just out of luck, and it can be just a touch too salty at times. I highly recommend this sub. I had it for lunch everyday the wife was in the hospital (four days, poor girl) and went back to have it again the day after she got out (she had Wendy's). Hell, I'll probably grab one today as well. It's that good.

Oh, and the Black Pepper & Lime chips are excellent as well. Sure the wife disagrees, but she doesn't like lime chips. Try them, if you get the chance.

Posted by the Captain at 7:18 AM CDT

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Mood:  lazy

I hadn't heard of the Dark n' Stormy before my visit to Slashfood.com yesterday, but I'm sure glad I have now. The recipe is simple and straightforward but the taste is out of this world. For those of you too lazy to click the link above, take a tall glass, fill halfway with ice, add two shots of gold rum, one shot of fresh lime juice, a 1/4 shot of sugar syrup, and fill to the top with ginger beer, stir and enjoy. Now, I have a couple of tips and preference items that will help your advance your drinking pleasure: First, I found a 1/4 shot of sugar syrup to be too little and increased the amount to a half shot, and secondly, they aren't kidding when they say "fresh" lime juice. It is human nature to try to find an easy way out, and I bought some bottle lime juice to try out, as well as the fresh limes. There is a significant drop off in taste with the bottled lime juice, so be sure to juice your own limes at the time of drink construction. Overall, I found the taste to be light and crisp, with the perfect combination of sweetness and tartness. It was a fine drink for a summer evening (and yes I know it's technically fall, but tell that to the weather in these parts).

Posted by the Captain at 2:05 PM CDT

Updated: Tuesday, 4 October 2005 2:07 PM CDT

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Mood:  lazy

Monday night at long last, and time for some football, food and fun, but not necessarily in that order. Oddly enough, there was a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the food plans for this past Monday night. Usually the plans are made in advance, or at least by the time I leave work, but this just wasn't the case yesterday. At first, I thought a nice, simple chicken curry was just the thing, but as the day wore on, I became less enamored with the idea. This is not because a curry wouldn't be wonderful thing, but more to do with my increasing desire not to do a lot of (or really, in this case, even a little) work. As sad as I am to admit it, sometimes I just don't feel like cooking. Yes, this surprises me as much as it does you, since cooking is one of my favorite activities, probably ranking only marginally lower than sex and video games on my favorite things to do chart (although that is subject to change, depending on what I'm cooking), but I digress. I was certain that the after work trip to the grocer.

So the wife and I embark upon our journey to H.E.B., our local grocer, and I quickly discovered that this would not be as helpful as I had though. The wife tried to be helpful (as always) and pointed out easy alternatives to actual cooking, including my favorite frozen lasagna (Stouffer's, of course), but somehow these things just didn't seem right for the application that we had in mind. Some were time limit issues (it takes about two hours to heat up a good size frozen lasagna) and some were just taste issues (although I have an embarrassing love of frozen pizza, it isn't something that should be served at a party, or even to company). So what to do? Well, instead of coming to any kind of real conclusion, we bought a sheet cake. The wife picked it out, red velvet cake with cream cheese icing, and it was good. And it will be again today since there is plenty left. It's always good to have something to look forward to after work, let me tell you.

Thus, we were forced into the final refuge of the indecisive, delivery pizza. Yes, I can hear your gasps of horror from here, but the truth is, as much as we all complain about it, we all eat it, in one form or another. And in the final accounting, our choice became clear: Pizza Hut. It is important to point out that I don't feel that Pizza Hut has the best chain delivery pizza, I have always believed that honor goes to Papa John's (at least of the big four that I have easy access to), but the wife is a big fan of the pan crust that Pizza Hut offers, and they had a good promotion going. Yes, a good promotion is probably king in the delivery pizza decision process, especially with the ridiculous prices of chain pizza nowdays. We ordered two large pan crust pies, one supreme and the was a meat lover's, and two medium pies, one sausage and one pepperoni, and it turned out to be more than enough. Overall, the pizza was good, not great, but good. My guess is that you already know if you like Pizza Hut's style of pizza or not.

The real highlight of the evening was a drink, cocktail, whatever your prefer to name your adult beverages. This one is called a Dark n' Stormy and was brought to me (and you too, if you wish) by the good people over on Slashfood.com. See the other post for more on this spectacular drink.

Posted by the Captain at 1:29 PM CDT

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Mood:  lazy

Monday Night Football has come and gone again, but not without certain culinary highlights worth mentioning to you in this space. After the big steak blowout last Monday night, this Monday was about a return to simplicity, and as such, was originally scheduled to be a return to hot dogs and chips. Now while hot dogs and chips are certainly a fitting football meal, and one that we enjoy several Monday nights a year, it wasn't all that I hoped for on this particular evening. Now what, you might ask, could be better than for an evening of football than hot dogs? Certainly a legitimate question, for the hot dog has become the quintessential sports food (except for maybe nachos, but I digress).

Bratwurst was just the thing. A variety of brats, that is. A trip to Moody's (our local butcher shop) by the wife (good work, honey) netted us eighteen of the finest brats available in our surf side hamlet, in four varieties, no less. The varieties were represented as follows: Three "Awesome" brats, five German style brats, five pork brats, and five jalapeno and cheese brats. I can say without fear of contradiction that although favorites may vary, all of the varieties are of high quality and excellent flavor, but I would have expected nothing less from Moody's Quality Meats. Taste was really all on Moody's, because the preparation and cooking of the brats was about as simple and basic as it gets: Take brats out of package; throw brats on George Foreman grill until nice and cooked. That's all there was to it, and it worked like a charm. Of course, since I had not previously used the grill to cook brats, I had to test it on the three "Awesome" brats before everyone else got there. They were great and I'm sure everyone else would have liked them had they the opportunity to sample them. There are benefits to being the host.

Now, I know the following is probably blasphemy in some brat lovers circles, but we will tolerate no food snobbery here. The brats went on hot dog buns. It's true. No scratch made brat buns to make up for the impossible to find commercial variety available almost exclusively in Wisconsin. Just good, old-fashioned hot dog buns. In all honesty, it is obvious when eating a brat in a hot dog bun that the hot dog bun is not really up to the task of providing for a brat and it's condiments, but any port in a storm really is the adage for the moment. Perhaps next time a submarine bun would be a good substitute. We shall see before the season is out, I'm sure because the brats were good enough that I'm sure they will make a return trip to my kitchen.

Posted by the Captain at 8:48 AM CDT

Updated: Thursday, 29 September 2005 9:02 AM CDT

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Mood:  lazy

Well, after dinner on Wednesday, it was time to head out into the night and see what I might find, or at least go out and shoot pool with the guys while staying out of trouble with the wife. I can hear your laughter right now, but in all earnestness, the wife is a good sport and Wednesday has long been pool night.

Now while not specifically dealing with food, pool night definitely deals with beer, which as everyone knows is really an unrecognized food group anyway. Pool night consists of heading out of the house and down the road to a pool hall called Theo's. Now, there are a couple of nice things about Theo's: firstly, they have free pool on Wednesday night, and that's always a good thing, and secondly, the waitresses are attractive (you know they are, beautiful wife, but never as attractive as you), easy going, and quick to bring you an ice cold beer. Let's face it, there isn't much else that you can ask for from a waitress.

More to the food tie in, my beer of choice while on my diet (at least when I am pretending to adhere to the diet) is Budweiser Select. At ninety-nine calories it's hard to beat, and it has some flavor which is a nice change from some other light beers I could name here, but won't. Ok, you talked me into it, Miller Light, Bud Light, etc. Anyway, I had three Bud Selects with my pool, and a good time was had by all. I also managed to win quite a bit, which always adds to the good time.

Posted by the Captain at 3:43 PM CDT

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Mood:  lazy

There has certainly been a change in the tastes of the average American diner over the past fifteen or so years (maybe a little further back if you live on one of the coasts) and to meet the new tastes, new restaurants have risen forth. In this particular area, several Thai restaurants have opened over the past five years, which has been just a delight for me as Thai food is one of my favorites. Now, my favorite place to have a nice Thai meal used to be Mon's, but they have since packed up and moved off to San Antonio. A major disappointment, to be sure, but into every life a little rain must fall. Speaking of favorites, the whole point of this post in the first place was to talk about my lunch on Monday, or more specifically the restaurant that I got that lunch at on Monday, Thai Spice.

Now, Thai Spice opened up originally in a building that had housed one of the local favorites (Vietnam) before they moved downtown, so the location wasn't bad. Even such, it was a while after they opened that my brother (younger than I) and myself first discovered the delicious joys that were contained inside this new Thai place. Of course, like the good sons we are, we immediately spread the news of our discovery to my mother and grandmother, who then proceeded to make Thai Spice their near daily luncheon place. Not that I can blame them. Shortly there after, Thai Spice follow the example of their predecessor and moved downtown as well, and in an incredible twist of fate, right across the street from the building I work in. Not a bad move at all, if I do say so as an obvious beneficiary.

So, taking advantage of my luck, I ventured forth to meat the women of my family (the wife, mother and grandmother) for lunch at Thai Spice on Monday. Lunch was, as always, wonderful. I had the Chicken with Lemon grass (highly recommended). The meal started with a cup of spicy vegetable soup with a side of fried wantons (or their wrapper to be more presice), followed by an order of freshly made chicken spring rolls. Even though the lunch special always comes with a little appetizer (spring roll, pan fried pot sticker, etc.) I always like to get an order of fresh spring rolls. They are excellent, no matter what the wife says. The lunch special included a spring roll, jasmine rice, and fresh fruit for desert. Everything was fantastic, and, as usual, my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I ended up taking two spring rolls home.

Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better lunch experience, and it has always been that way each time I have been there. The food is excellent, and the people are nice. There isn't much else that one can expect or want for that matter. Try it yourself, if you find yourself in Corpus Christi.

Posted by the Captain at 10:06 AM CDT

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Mood:  lazy

Due to the whole "weight loss" thing, I usually try to keep my midday calories to a minimum. Sure this usually means sacrificing taste, but most creamy pasta dishes aren't on the diet plan, as might be expected. Either way, my usual fair for lunch tends to be a pair of frozen dinners from the "low calorie" selections available at my local grocer, probably much the same as the selection available at your local grocer. Recently, my discovery of Lean Cuisine Spa Cuisine Classics has changed my view greatly of what frozen "diet" meals can be, especially the Lemon grass Chicken meal. Sure they aren't the greatest gourmet meals of all time, but they are a damn sight better than most.

Now that I've gotten that bit of something out of the way, the whole point of this is I didn't actually eat any frozen meals for lunch on Tuesday. Instead, it was leftover burgers (see the post on Monday night's meal) and some of my favorite french fried potatoes from Wing Stop. Can't forget the ice cold Dr. Pepper to wash all the naughty indulgence foods down, that would be a crime in itself. Ah, the joys of a bit of leftovers with a bit of something fresh and new, it can make the whole day just a little bit better, and that's really what food is about anyway, making the whole day, and life for that matter, just a little bit better.

Posted by the Captain at 9:29 AM CDT

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Mood:  lazy

Ah, the first Monday night of football season brings out the urge to cook in the heart of many a man and woman, the urge to eat a staggering amount of food that is dubious for one's health at the very least. I am one of those people, and as last night was indeed the first Monday night game of the season, it was time to have enough burgers to choke a camel. Now football fans might be quick to point out the the boys of Monday night officially kicked off the season last Thursday night with the official season opener in New England, but I would be quick to point out to those folks that while they may have a valid point, Thursday is still not Monday and as such, doesn't count.

Now, the confession: Because of time constraints between work and kickoff, I had to take the lazy way out (well, had to or not, that's exactly what I did, but who doesn't like a good excuse?) Anyway, the hows and whys be damned, I made a quick stop at my local H.E.B. (I would say my grocer of choice, but in fact it is my grocer of convenience. I prefer Sun Harvest) and acquired the items that would be needed: pre-formed and fabricated hamburger patties (eight steak flavored patties, eight jalapeno and cheese flavored patties shaped like Texas, and eight chipolte and cheese patties), hamburger buns, some nice colby jack cheese from the deli sliced on number 2 (I feel that number 2 is the perfect thickness for hamburgers, not too thick to melt gently over the patty, but not too thin to require two slices of cheese), and some nice, ripe, red tomatos. Oh, and a cold Dr. Pepper for the drive home. Shopping is hard work, you know.

Now, under more leisurely circumstances, I prefer to use the grill to make burgers, but by the time I had returned from the store, it was already seven and that left me only a single hour before the kickoff at eight. Not a lot of time at all, considering the staggering amount of work to be done. Ok, not really. It isn't like making burgers is the most time intensive thing in the world, so I won't pretent it is here, but grilling, as anyone knows, takes time, and really, pre-fashioned burgers aren't worth it. One day, we will speak of homemade burgers on these pages, and discuss the joys of grilling said bugers, but this is not that day. So out comes the giant, non-stick skillet of my choice (Having a mother that does Pampered Chef comes in handy sometimes) and in go the burgers.

Now pre-formed burgers don't take any skill at all to cook, just basically a timer. Ten minutes on one side, flip, five minutes more on the other, and they are all done and ready to go. Unfortunely, I couldn't fit all twenty four patties in the frying pan at once, so it did take about an hour and a half to finish them all. That did give me plenty of time to slice up the onion (purple, of course), the aforementioned tomatoes, and to set out the various other odds and ends (spicy brown mustard, yellow mustard, mayonaise, ketchup, etc.). The wife pitched in as well, washing off the leafy green lettuce we had purchased a few days earlier, and drying off each individual leaf with love, and a paper towel. Luckily, my friends are always fashionably late, or just plain late, depending on how you look at it.

All in all, everything turned out as well as it could, considering some of the shortcuts I took, but that's the way life is sometimes. We just don't have all the time we would like to do everything we would like. So I have a ton of food ready, at least enough for the ten or so people that said they were going to show up. Not a large celebration, but football with the guys. Then the cancellations start, at least those that bothered to call and cancel. Not a big deal though, there are always a certain amount of people that cancel out on any given gathering. At the final tally, there were five or so people that showed, and a good time was had by all. The only downside is that I may be eating burgers for dinner for another day or three. Such is life.

Posted by the Captain at 8:50 AM CDT

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